Avalanche & NHL

Season over, Colorado Avalanche mulling what went wrong in playoffs

Ryan O'Reilly's dejection was on display Wednesday night after the Avalanche bowed out of the NHL playoffs with a 5-4 overtime loss to the Wild in Game 7 of their series. (John Leyba, The Denver Post)

As a goaltender, Patrick Roy never believed in the "It takes time to learn to win; winning is a process" meme. He preferred to skip right to the head of the class, winning the Stanley Cup as a rookie with the Montreal Canadiens in 1986.

So the "WhyNotUs?" theme Roy adopted, on a suggestion from friend and former teammate Ray Bourque at dinner early in the season, became harder and harder to mock as the season played out. As each supposedly impenetrable barrier was overcome — a winning record, a playoff berth, a division title — the biggest one of all, a Stanley Cup, seemed less and less an impossible dream. But as Wednesday night's Game 7 overtime loss to the Minnesota Wild proved, the little engine that could just couldn't quite get over the highest hill.

Patrick Roy's first season as coach of the Avalanche was a success. But losing in the first round of the playoffs was a sour way to end the season. (Karl Gehring, The Denver Post)

As much as Roy wanted to buy in to the dream of winning the Stanley Cup in his first season as Colorado's coach, he made a confession after his team's stunning exit in the 5-4 loss, a game during which the Avalanche lost the lead four times.

"As much as we were dreaming maybe to win the Stanley Cup, we knew it would be tough for us to win the Stanley Cup, because we're not there yet," Roy said. "It's hard to say that, but it's a fact."

On paper, the Avs were upset in the first round by the Wild. Yes, they were the higher-seeded team and had home-ice advantage. But that designation never fit their season-long, underdog self image. There always seemed something a little off with the Avs as division-winning, home-ice favorites.

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The Avs won the Central Division title, and the hearts of their fans again, after several years of mediocrity. But in doing so, they seemed to overachieve. They never had the right metrics, the right credentials, to win over the skeptics. Only five other NHL teams — all of which failed to make the playoffs — allowed more shots on goal per game than the Avs' average of 32.7. Their penalty killing (80.7 percent) ranked only 24th in the 30-team league. They ranked just 18th in faceoffs, winning 49.5 percent. In the advanced statistics category of "Fenwick Close" — a stat that computes the number of unblocked shots taken by a team at the opponent's net divided by the total number of unblocked shots by both teams — the Avs finished the regular season ranked 27th. Of the eight teams remaining in the playoffs, four finished the regular season in the top 10 of Fenwick Close.

The Avs kept thumbing their noses at the stat geeks as the wins piled up. But in the end, one basic truth about why the Avs lost emerged: They played too close to the edge too often. They led the NHL in one-goal victories (28), several of which required miraculous finishes helped along by Roy's innovative move of pulling his goalie earlier than is traditionally done. To take the next step toward the Stanley Cup, the Avs will need to make things easier on themselves.

"It's always fun to come back down two in the third. But that's not how championships are won," said rookie Nathan MacKinnon, who had 10 points in the series against the Wild but none in the Game 6 and 7 losses. "It doesn't take a genius to figure that out."

The Avalanche's defense could use some improvement, but it's unclear where help will come from. This year's crop of free agents looks to be thin in quality, and some of the team's best blue-line prospects (Chris Bigras, Duncan Siemens) might be too green to make the jump to the NHL.

Nobody is saying the Avs need an overhaul. The future appears bright, with many young, talented forwards and a goalie, Semyon Varlamov, who is a Vezina Trophy finalist. Maybe all it will take is more maturity in their development to get to the next level of the playoffs. Judging by some of the long faces — and even some tears — in the Avs' dressing room after Game 7, some of the young players got a harsh lesson in what it really takes to win in playoff hockey.

"I don't want any players blaming themselves for the loss. We win and we lose as a team," Roy said. "We lost as a team. I think we have learned a lot from that series, and that we're a better team (for it)."

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